New Perspectives on Early Music in Spain

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in Spanish music of the Middle Ages and Early Modern period on the part not only of scholars but also of performers and listeners, and not only from inside Spain but also from without. However, the research activity stimulated by this interest has mostly been published in Spanish and within Spain, and has yet to establish a clear narrative in a broader European context. Histories of Western European music still tend to present only brief surveys of musical developments in Spain before 1600, and the extent to which the musics and musicians of the Spanish kingdoms formed an integral part of a wider cultural map has rarely been considered in depth.

This volume brings together research by scholars, both well established and of younger generations, both Spanish and from all over the world, that offers new perspectives on many aspects of early musical culture in the Peninsula whether regarding the Ars Nova or the Counter-Reformation, music historiography or analysis, early improvisation techniques or ‘imitatio’ in Renaissance polyphony, and questions of performance practice or ambassadorial musical networks. These essays will thus hopefully make an important contribution to establishing and sustaining a valuable discourse with that broader European context.